Govt apathy seals vaccine plant fate

A messed-up plan to upgrade a pioneering vaccine manufacturing plant - and the failure to initiate timely corrective measures - has not only sent crores of rupees down the drain but also led to shortage of many vaccines and drugs in the country.

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Savita Verma

New Delhi

February 8, 2010

UPDATED: February 8, 2010 09:23 IST

A messed-up plan to upgrade a pioneering vaccine manufacturing plant - and the failure to initiate timely corrective measures - has not only sent crores of rupees down the drain but also led to shortage of many vaccines and drugs in the country.

The revelations were made in reply to a Right to Information (RTI) query.

The contract to upgrade the plant - the Central Research Institute (CRI) in Kasauli - was given to HSCC, a Noida-based public sector company, in 1998.

But the company could not finish the job even after 10 years. And all these years, the government did not bother to put the work on the right track.

The RTI application was filed by Dr K.V. Babu, a central council member of the Indian Medial Association.

The manufacturing licence of CRI and two units in Tamil Nadu was suspended in January 2008 for not following good manufacturing practices.

The government was then forced to purchase crucial vaccines such as the DPT and anti-Tetanus for its national immunisation programme from the private sector, almost at double the price.

While the first phase of the project was to be over in two-and-a-half-years, a government review in August 2001 found deficiencies in the construction work. Around of Rs 12 crore had been released to the company by then.

The HSCC in 2006 admitted that it did not have any expertise to upgrade such production plants. The company officials were not available for comment.

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